The following includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention(s). It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art, or material, to the presently described or claimed inventions, or that any publication or document that is specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of pipe spacing devices and more specifically relates to pipe spacing wedge systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Standard pipeline construction generally requires the use of multiple sections of pipe which must be joined together to form a longer pipeline. Various methods are available to join these sections of pipe. Some methods include the use of mechanical restraints, joining pipe by adhesive, or the pipe sections may use a bell-and-spigot and hold together by friction. In the case of metallic pipe, including steel and steel alloys, joining the pipe sections by welding, brazing, or soldering is common in the industry.
When welding metallic pipe, great care must be taken to ensure that the welds are of the proper thickness and depth to ensure longevity of the pipeline and leak-free construction. Therefore the gap spacing used and to be filled by welds is of great importance. Various methods may be employed to ensure the proper gap spacing.
Common methods of ensuring the proper gap between sections of pipe include the use of a wedge, a gap rod, or a spacing ring. These devices are either placed between the pipe sections as they are brought together or may be hammered/driven/pryed into a smaller gap to open the gap to a wider predetermined width. These devices are also used to gauge the gap. Generally, a wedge or gap rod is a specific thickness such that they can only be used for a single gap width. This limitation requires that the pipefitter or tradesman must have available multiple different wedges or gap rods to cover the range of desired gaps during construction. This limitation makes pipeline construction more costly and time consuming. Therefore a suitable solution is required.
Several attempts have been made to solve the above-mentioned problems such as those found in U.S. and Foreign Pat. And Pub. Nos. U.S. Pat. No. 4,505,420 to Wittenbach, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,059,320 and 4,346,918 to Lycan, U.S. Pat. No. 2,423,848 to O'Connor, U.S. Pat. No. 1,872,240 to Burnish, U.S. Pat. No. 3,540,487 to Lorusso, U.S. Pat. No. 3,210,068 to Shelton, U.S. Pat. No. 2,803,883 to Morano, U.S. Pat. No. 8,292,161 and CA 2,649,980 to Hacikyan, U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,541 to Condon, and EP 0,366,399 to Jones. This art is representative of pipe spacing devices. However, none of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the invention as claimed.
Preferably, a pipe spacing wedge system should provide a device to allow a user to quickly and accurately set a variety of different specific gap widths between sections of pipe and, yet would operate reliably and be manufactured at a modest expense. Thus, a need exists for a reliable pipe spacing wedge system to avoid the above-mentioned problems.